Tuesday, 11 December 2012

Cranberry, apple and butterscotch muffins

Travel is a tease. It offers all manner of exciting new ingredients but it offers little opportunity to cook or bake with them. I have done very little cooking on our trip to Scotland until this weekend. Over the last couple of days, however, I have made full use of our wonderful holiday kitchen. Saturday morning found me baking mini muffins to use unusual ingredients and also a few that just needed using up.

But first let me show you the cute Christmas mini muffin papers that I picked up in Lakeland. This is a kitchenwares shop of great temptation. Unfortunately it is not overly practical when having to carry your belongings in a suitcase. Luckily I managed to bake with these before Sylvia seconded them as holders for her small and tiny things.

I am sorry to say that I have little faith in our kitchen. I decided it was too much to expect that it would yield either a measuring cup or scales. After I baked these muffins, I found I was wrong. At the time I was racing around and decided to just use a cup that was around the same size as 1 cup. Hence my measurements might be slightly approximate. That is the nature of holiday baking.

More exciting than cup measurements was the prospect of baking with cranberries and butterscotch chips, both of which can be bought easily in the supermarket in Edinburgh but not in Australia. I also used up some apple and 'porridge oats' (which are more finely ground than the rolled oats we use to make porridge at home). I used honey and some mueller corners (sweet plain yoghurt without fruit mixed in) to avoid buying extra ingredients.

I made these muffins for a family get-together we were hosting in a pub at lunchtime. An excellent opportunity to bake, to experiment and to share. It felt a little risky. I was using unknown ingredients. I wasn't sure how the pub would take to me bringing along some cakes. I decided that in the worst case scenario we would have lots of cakes to take home or give away.

The staff at the Braidburn Inn were very accommodating of my need to bake. We had ordered savoury finger food for family and family friends. It went down well while we caught up with old friends and enjoyed looking at old black and white photos that E's aunty had brought along. Sylvia had a lovely time chasing her cousin around the tables.

After the savouries, E did a short speech and played a piece on his ukelele. Then I arranged the cakes onto a few cakes to be placed on the tables. Everyone was very complimentary. A few of them read my blog and were pleased to sample the food. No cakes were left when we all left. A great afternoon with kind and generous people, including one couple who arrived from their home in the Lake District.

I looked up a few recipes and sort of used one for apple cider cake with cranberries and walnuts.
I had drunk the apple juice by the time I made these and the final
product was nothing like it. However it had the festive flavours that
were appropriate for this time of year. The mixture was very thick
but I think it allowed for the moisture from the apples and
cranberries.

Most surprising of all were the butterscotch chips. These were
unlike those that Ricki sent me from Canada which were like butterscotch
flavoured chop chips. The Sainsburys butterscotch chips were more like
crisp nuggets that exploded throughout the muffin and over the muffin
tin in a delicious way. I was also a little unsure about how to use the white chocolate stars and was not sure if I should have baked them on - they didn't stick on very well, even when place on straight after coming out of the oven.

I only had one muffin at the lunch so I was glad that I sampled one or two that fell apart when turning out of the muffin tin. Upon trying them at
home, Sylvia was most unimpressed with the fresh cranberries. Yet she
told me that she ate a cake at the lunch. Like her, I was pleased with how these cakes turned out.

5 comments:

How delightful (and impressive) - I have never baked on holiday and in fact I don't think it has ever occurred to me to do so! I always miss baking, though, so if / when I am next staying somewhere equipped for the task I may just follow your lead.

These muffins look gorgeous and I like the mix of ingredients. They definitely sound perfect for Christmas.

These sound incredible! I think they look lovely, too, with the stars. I've actually had that kind of butterscotch chip in the past, too--we can get both kinds here--but I think I like the ones I sent better. ;)

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Recipes and reflections in which our vegetarian heroine dreams of being tall and graceful as a giraffe; being a goddess in the kitchen; and being gladdened by green gadgets, green food and green politics because green is the colour of hope. See About Me for more info.